Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

....

Yet once again you ignore WHY they chose to use this design model.

 

By the way... how can you claim the technology exists for a huge, seamless world comprised of over 1500 dynamic events when they're the first to actually use dynamic events like this in the first place... they developed the technology for this type of world in other words.

And once again, I'm not ignoring anything. The reason lag is an issue is BECAUSE of the game design. They could have designed a large seamless world WITHOUT the use of instances and INCLUDING dynamic events, but they chose not to.

 What Volk is trying to say is that if ANet did that, then GW2 would have been a different game.  They designed it the way they did for a reason, and zoning was a side effect of that design.

If you restrict yourself to only designs that would not necessitate zoning...then you really hold yourself back.  There's a place for world designs that push the technical envelope enough to require zoning to function.

Even Pony (the OP) basically accepts that if he wants to have a really lush detailed world, then zoning may be a requirement even though he hates it.  It's just kind of the reality of things, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

And once again, I'm not ignoring anything. The reason lag is an issue is BECAUSE of the game design. They could have designed a large seamless world WITHOUT the use of instances and INCLUDING dynamic events, but they chose not to.

Again, you assert this without a basis for your assertion.

 

Who else has done this such that we may see the technology exists?

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges across the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-created dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

....

Yet once again you ignore WHY they chose to use this design model.

 

By the way... how can you claim the technology exists for a huge, seamless world comprised of over 1500 dynamic events when they're the first to actually use dynamic events like this in the first place... they developed the technology for this type of world in other words.

And once again, I'm not ignoring anything. The reason lag is an issue is BECAUSE of the game design. They could have designed a large seamless world WITHOUT the use of instances and INCLUDING dynamic events, but they chose not to.

 What Volk is trying to say is that if ANet did that, then GW2 would have been a different game.  They designed it the way they did for a reason, and zoning was a side effect of that design.

If you restrict yourself to only designs that would not necessitate zoning...then you really hold yourself back.  There's a place for world designs that push the technical envelope enough to require zoning to function.

Even Pony (the OP) basically accepts that if he wants to have a really lush detailed world, then zoning may be a requirement even though he hates it.  It's just kind of the reality of things, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Lol, I'm not arguing that it wouldn't be a different game, that's plainly obvious.

The point is very simple, they CHOSE to design the game that way. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a CHOICE. That's it! That's all I'm saying lol. 

Originally posted by Zekiah

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges acros the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-creted dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Wow, I didn't realize that Shadowbane also had thousands of dynamic events going on in addition to that! AMAZING! Or... reaching. Shadowbane deals with the people present, much like WvW will with it's seiges etc. Hardly compares to the continual processing of hundreds of events in a zone in addition to all the people present.

And... once again, no one is arguing that it's by choice. It's a question of why the choice was made, which you dismiss out of hand.

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges acros the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-creted dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Wow, I didn't realize that Shadowbane also had thousands of dynamic events going on in addition to that! AMAZING! Or... reaching. Shadowbane deals with the people present, much like WvW will with it's seiges etc. Hardly compares to the continual processing of hundreds of events in a zone in addition to all the people present.

 

And... once again, no one is arguing that it's by choice. It's a question of why the choice was made, which you dismiss out of hand.

Yeah, really! In a large world there are hundreds if not thousands of events occuring at the same time, imagine that! It's amazing the technology they had back then, it's too bad that technology was lost to history.

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges acros the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-creted dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Wow, I didn't realize that Shadowbane also had thousands of dynamic events going on in addition to that! AMAZING! Or... reaching. Shadowbane deals with the people present, much like WvW will with it's seiges etc. Hardly compares to the continual processing of hundreds of events in a zone in addition to all the people present.

 

And... once again, no one is arguing that it's by choice. It's a question of why the choice was made, which you dismiss out of hand.

Yeah, really! In a large world there are hundreds if not thousands of events occuring at the same time, imagine that! It's amazing the technology they had back then, it's too bad that technology was lost to history.

You're claiming that Shadowbane had hundreds of events constantly going on whether or not players were there in addition to the activities of the players themselves, is that correct?

Tell me about these dynamic events in Shadowbane.

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

And once again, I'm not ignoring anything. The reason lag is an issue is BECAUSE of the game design. They could have designed a large seamless world WITHOUT the use of instances and INCLUDING dynamic events, but they chose not to.

Again, you assert this without a basis for your assertion.

 

Who else has done this such that we may see the technology exists?

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges across the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-created dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Of course it's a choice. A design choice.

Darkfall minimized the amount of detail in the world to accomplish what it did. They also left out almost all PvE mobs at launch. The game was also a slideshow even on good computers at launch whenever there was more than 100 people fighting in an area.

On top of that just having a large battles would cause the entire server to stutter/lag even if you were nowhere near the battles.

There was also the massive memory leak while traveling. If you tried to travel any decent amount of distance without 8+ gigs of RAM you were going to crash. I remember having whole raiding parties logout just before reaching their destination so that they didn't crash in the middle of a battle.

Take off the rosy glasses and come back to reality. Darkfall at launch was a  featureless barren wasteland compared to Guild Wars 2.

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges acros the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-creted dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Wow, I didn't realize that Shadowbane also had thousands of dynamic events going on in addition to that! AMAZING! Or... reaching. Shadowbane deals with the people present, much like WvW will with it's seiges etc. Hardly compares to the continual processing of hundreds of events in a zone in addition to all the people present.

 

And... once again, no one is arguing that it's by choice. It's a question of why the choice was made, which you dismiss out of hand.

Yeah, really! In a large world there are hundreds if not thousands of events occuring at the same time, imagine that! It's amazing the technology they had back then, it's too bad that technology was lost to history.

You're claiming that Shadowbane had hundreds of events constantly going on whether or not players were there in addition to the activities of the players themselves, is that correct?

 

Tell me about these dynamic events in Shadowbane.

Of course there were, there were cities strewn about the world and there were many battles, sieges and conflicts all happening at once. They could have easily designed GW2 as a one world, one one server and STILL had all the dynamic events.

If you want to believe they couldn't because of their excuses that's up to you but it's a lie. Game developers give all kinds of excuses to explain their game design, it's not always the truth you know.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Zekiah

And once again, I'm not ignoring anything. The reason lag is an issue is BECAUSE of the game design. They could have designed a large seamless world WITHOUT the use of instances and INCLUDING dynamic events, but they chose not to.

Again, you assert this without a basis for your assertion.

 

Who else has done this such that we may see the technology exists?

Um, Shadowbane for one. Or do you suppose multiple castle-seiges across the world won't tax the servers?

The belief that somehow current MMO designers are incapable of designing seamless worlds with dynamic events is really perplexing to me. Take Darkfall for example, it's one world full of many "dynamic" events occuring simultaneously, or at least there were when the game was doing better. Just because these are player-created dynamic events doesn't mean MMO designers are unable to create seamless worlds with their own dynamic events.

It is by choice. Period.

Of course it's a choice. A design choice.

Darkfall minimized the amount of detail in the world to accomplish what it did. They also left out almost all PvE mobs at launch. The game was also a slideshow even on good computers at launch whenever there was more than 100 people fighting in an area.

On top of that just having a large battles would cause the entire server to stutter/lag even if you were nowhere near the battles.

There was also the massive memory leak while traveling. If you tried to travel any decent amount of distance without 8+ gigs of RAM you were going to crash. I remember having whole raiding parties logout just before reaching their destination so that they didn't crash in the middle of a battle.

Take off the rosy glasses and come back to reality. Darkfall at launch was a  featureless barren wasteland compared to Guild Wars 2.

Just because it's easier to design a world based on zones and instances doesn't mean a seamless GW world can't be done. If you like zones and instances then more power to you, don't take it so personally.

This game also not aiming at the WoW and eq2 fans sure the game gonna be great and problably 10x better than gw1 they are aiming at their gw fans  and trhe rp elements which they have added with the their unique quest and event system so alot of people are gonna be dissapointed because they are expecting another WoW clone yes people banter games for bein too much like woW but then the same morons banter the games for not bein like WoW watch the argument s will be there seconds after the game goes live.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Because I really hate loading screens in mmorpgs. Especially ones with worlds that look so promising in the gorgeous department like GW2's world. But I guess you can't have drop-dead-gorgeousness and seamless in one world yet.

I don't mind them so much for optional and instanced content but that's the content I tend to avoid in most mmorpgs as I really enjoy roaming around, harvesting, pve'ing and pvp' ing in the open world. But if the main means of getting around is so loading screen heavy and if the vid I linked in the OP is any indication of what the game will play like, it is a reason for concern to me.

It's such a cliche thing to say but it's true: too frequent and/or long loading screens really impact my immersion (as well as my concentration *alt-tabs to mmorpg.com*). It's one of the key reasons I quit Swtor before the first month was up and why I don't use fast travel in Skyrim (except for the cariage dudes), to name a few examples. Possibly ADD related or maybe I got a compulsive immersion disorder, I dunno :) But I do know I am not the only one disliking them.

p.s. sorry that I didn't answer everyone who replied to me yet. WTB more taim!

You really should know better than to jump to conclusions like this.

Your Skyrim example is fitting, if you choose to, you can play GW2 almost exactly like you played Skyrim. Teleport ruins your immersion? Don't use it! Don't like too many loading screens? Don't jump back and forth between zones!

There are a few times where you won't be able to avoid a loading screen. But if you want to roam the lands for hours, there's nothing keeping you from that.

And it probably was said already, but the video wasn't cut. The loading bar got to 20%, stuck there for a few seconds, then jumped to full. That can also be seen in a few dozen other videos by a few dozen other people. That's because of the second letter in the greek alphabet. It will improve until launch. And I know that you know that.

There are very, very real hardware/software limitations to what is possible and what is not.

If that were not the case, every single MMO ever made would not have loading screens and would have graphics rivaling the best single player games in massive unbound land masses supporting thousands/millions of players simultaneously.

Also, not all engines are created equal.

So why don't all MMO dev studios use "the best" engine? For starters because there is no "best" engine or everyone would already be using it lol and secondly there are advantages/disadvantages to in house versus using a 3rd party etc.

Money is a factor, time is a factor...

This whole debate about why MMOs don't all have huge open seemless worlds isn't as black and white as many of ya'll pretend it is.

After playing SWTOR the loads screens in GW2 are not an issue for me

Originally posted by BadSpock

There are very, very real hardware/software limitations to what is possible and what is not.

If that were not the case, every single MMO ever made would not have loading screens and would have graphics rivaling the best single player games in massive unbound land masses supporting thousands/millions of players simultaneously.

Also, not all engines are created equal.

So why don't all MMO dev studios use "the best" engine? For starters because there is no "best" engine or everyone would already be using it lol and secondly there are advantages/disadvantages to in house versus using a 3rd party etc.

Money is a factor, time is a factor...

This whole debate about why MMOs don't all have huge open seemless worlds isn't as black and white as many of ya'll pretend it is.

 

If Aventurine could afford the time and money, I'm fairly certain ArenaNet could as well. 

This whole "the dev said it so it must be true", hype, marketing thing has gotten out of hand. Gamers really need to come back down to reality. Just because game designers make excuses for how they design their worlds doesn't mean they couldn't have designed it a different or better way.

If we're going to be honest about it anyway.

Originally posted by Zekiah

If Aventurine could afford the time and money, I'm fairly certain ArenaNet could as well. 

This whole "the dev said it so it must be true", hype, marketing thing has gotten out of hand. Gamers really need to come back down to reality. Just because game designers make excuses for how they design their worlds doesn't mean they couldn't have designed it a different or better way.

If we're going to be honest about it anyway.

For once I am actually at a loss, I have no possible way I can reply to this.

Originally posted by Zekiah

Of course it's a choice. A design choice.

Darkfall minimized the amount of detail in the world to accomplish what it did. They also left out almost all PvE mobs at launch. The game was also a slideshow even on good computers at launch whenever there was more than 100 people fighting in an area.

On top of that just having a large battles would cause the entire server to stutter/lag even if you were nowhere near the battles.

There was also the massive memory leak while traveling. If you tried to travel any decent amount of distance without 8+ gigs of RAM you were going to crash. I remember having whole raiding parties logout just before reaching their destination so that they didn't crash in the middle of a battle.

Take off the rosy glasses and come back to reality. Darkfall at launch was a  featureless barren wasteland compared to Guild Wars 2.

Just because it's easier to design a world based on zones and instances doesn't mean a seamless GW world can't be done. If you like zones and instances then more power to you, don't take it so personally.

I agree 100%.  They could have made GW2 a seamless open world. 

What you have to ask yourself is, would it be worth it?

Before you answer realize what this would mean.

They would have to scale down the level of detail in the world. Probably have to reduce the size and scope of it as well. It would also mean reducing the number of dynamic events and scaling down the size of them.

Please realize that Arenanet made these choices for a reason. They did to make the best game they could possibly make.

They didn't do it to break your immersion or just to personally spite you. 

Originally posted by Zekiah

Originally posted by BadSpock

There are very, very real hardware/software limitations to what is possible and what is not.

If that were not the case, every single MMO ever made would not have loading screens and would have graphics rivaling the best single player games in massive unbound land masses supporting thousands/millions of players simultaneously.

Also, not all engines are created equal.

So why don't all MMO dev studios use "the best" engine? For starters because there is no "best" engine or everyone would already be using it lol and secondly there are advantages/disadvantages to in house versus using a 3rd party etc.

Money is a factor, time is a factor...

This whole debate about why MMOs don't all have huge open seemless worlds isn't as black and white as many of ya'll pretend it is.

 

If Aventurine could afford the time and money, I'm fairly certain ArenaNet could as well. 

This whole "the dev said it so it must be true", hype, marketing thing has gotten out of hand. Gamers really need to come back down to reality. Just because game designers make excuses for how they design their worlds doesn't mean they couldn't have designed it a different or better way.

If we're going to be honest about it anyway.

You cannot even begin to compare Darkfall's world to the world of GW2. Darkfall had graphically and physically one of the sloppiest and low quality worlds ever released behind a AAA title. The world of darkfall is devoid of any detail, the characters have little detail, the overall graphics of the game are surpassed by those of Everquest which is a 13 year old game with only 2 graphical enhancements in that time. Darkfall released completely unfunctional with a population that arguably never surpassed the 200k mark.  Darkfall's world was is and always will be empty, static, and barren. It is about the furthest thing from what GW2 is bringing to teh table. But thats all just the meat of the subject... The real bones of it is that Darkfall required almost nothing serverside to run. The game largely ran client side. Gw2 runs almost entirely serverside. Almost everything you see is only being rendered by your computer from the data you recieve from teh computers. There is more processed data in Lion's Arch then there was in all of the Darkfall world.

To compare these two game is like comparing an apple with a hamburger? Both consumable but thats about where the similarities end.

Ok Spock, it is illogical to believe that ArenaNet could design their game world without zones and instances. It is quite simply impossible for them to design a seamless world with all their dynamic content.

Feel better lol? 

Zekiah I think your argument has gone so far off the rails that it's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean now.

Just to summarize...

You first stated that having load screens damages your immersion.

We stated that we understand you feel this way, but the load screens are necessary due to technical limitations.

You then said that games large open world games like Shadowbane and Darkfall didn't have load screens, so why can't GW2?

We responded that GW2 has to have load screens because of how its world is designed.  In order to get rid of the load screens, they would have to completely change the game.

To which you basically said that GW2 should have been Shadowbane or Darkfall 2.

I mean...you went from not liking the load screens to saying that GW2 should have been a completely different game.  Doesn't this seem just a little extreme?

Originally posted by Zekiah

Ok Spock, it is illogical to believe that ArenaNet could design their game world without zones and instances. It is quite simply impossible for them to design a seamless world with all their dynamic content.

Feel better lol? 

Not at all impossible, they could have easily made a game world without zones and instances.

So could have WoW, TOR, EQ2, EQ1, AoC, WAR, Rift....

But what would they lose to do it?

I'll take a quick load screen now and again to not have Darkfall thank you very much.

Darkfall is the only MMORPG I have ever downloaded, installed, launched, and then uninstalled within an hour of launching the game

The fact they and others compare Darkfall to my glorious, glorious Ultima Online is insulting lol